Scotland's First Minister, Alex Salmond, today began talks with opposition party leaders in a race against time to save his £33 billion budget.

Scotland's First Minister, Alex Salmond, today began talks with opposition party leaders in a race against time to save his £33 billion budget.

The talks took place at Holyrood where MSPs yesterday voted down the budget in a move which sent shockwaves through Scottish politics.

Today the SNP insisted it was not bluffing in its threat to trigger an early election if its budget does not get through at the second attempt.

But there was little evident enthusiasm among party leaders for an early election.

MSPs will be asked tonight to approve a timetable which would see a revised budget have its first Holyrood debate on February 4, its committee proceedings on February 10, and a final Holyrood debate and vote the following day.

The Scottish Government argued the uncertainty was already hitting financial planning for public bodies.

Scotland's health boards were to have been told their financial allocations on Monday but this has now been delayed.

And finance secretary John Swinney has written to local authorities, who have to set their budgets by March 11, to reassure them a budget will be brought as quickly as possible.

The budget row dominated First Minister's Questions, where both Mr Salmond and Scottish Tory leader Annabel Goldie rounded on Labour for its role in the budget defeat, The budget was defeated by 65 votes to 64 after Labour argued the budget did too little for jobs, the Liberal Democrats rejected it after their call for a 2p income tax cut was dismissed, and Greens said the offer of a £22 million home insulation scheme - upped at the last minute to a possible £33 million - was not enough.

Only the Tories and independent MSP Margo MacDonald voted with the SNP.

Mr Salmond put his party on an election footing after the defeat and today finance secretary John Swinney repeated that the SNP would resign if the budget failed a second time - "and we will see what happens then".

Ms Goldie said at First Minister's Questions: "For Iain Gray, this was not about addressing Labour's recession.

"For Iain Gray and the Scottish Labour Party, this was about trying to stage some debating chamber bloodless coup to ensconce himself as First Minister."

Mr Salmond accused Labour of putting 35,000 jobs at risk by voting against the budget, through the uncertainty now surrounding the extra £1.8 billion spending in the defeated budget compared to the current year's spending.

The First Minister insisted the SNP had moved to address Labour concerns on jobs.

"The budget failed because the Labour Party as the principal opposition party decided to put their own narrow interest before employment and jobs for Scotland," he said.

But Mr Gray accused Mr Salmond of "gratuitous scaremongering" over the possible consequences and said there was enough time for a revised budget to go through.

"The SNP approached the serious matter of the Scottish budget with reckless brinkmanship and arrogance - hubris, indeed," Mr Gray said.

"They chose to seek narrow political advantage rather than broad, constructive consensus.

"That approach must not be repeated."

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Tavish Scott asked: "Is the First Minister prepared to sit down, as I will, to roll up his sleeves and work with others to build both a budget and a long term economic approach that can create jobs and tackle the economic recession?"

Mr Salmond told him: "I am perfectly happy to have constructive discussions."

The talks which began this afternoon involve Mr Salmond and opposition party leaders, as well as party finance spokesmen.

The talks were based on the original budget document, as amended by concessions made by Mr Swinney to other parties yesterday, said a spokesman for the First Minister.

"The point where we got to at Decision Time (the final vote) is the logical basis for budget discussion from today forward," the spokesman said.

This means Scottish Green Party leader Patrick Harvie still has the offer of £22 million for a home insulation scheme, which could be upped to £33 million.

Mr Harvie, whose party had wanted a £100 million a year, 10-year programme, said today he would seek a better offer.

He is demanding that the possible £11 million which Mr Swinney has suggested - in the form of "resources from our social partners" - must be new government money not already allocated to environmental projects.

"If we were putting together our own budget we'd be spending a lot less on concrete," he said.

"There are hundreds of million of pounds that we'd be cutting.

"If he can't get support for those kinds of cuts from the rest of the chamber, he needs to come back with a solution."

As the talks got under way, Labour offered to back the SNP in return for a scaled-down concession on apprenticeships.

If the SNP accepted, Labour would support the budget and the Bill could go through even faster than the timetable to be voted on by MSPs later today, the party said.

Labour had originally wanted a commitment to an extra 7,800 apprenticeships a year for each of the next three years.

Today, Mr Gray said Labour would accept a commitment to 7,800 for each of the next two years - 15,600 in total - and an "indication" from the SNP that this would continue for a third year.

The cost of this offer, over three years, would be between £45 million and £90 million, depending on how the apprenticeships were configured.

"Our view is that this is a reasonable offer," Mr Gray said.

"There is a compelling case to make this move.

"If Mr Salmond were to accept it - and he can accept it tonight - there would be certainty about this budget passing through.

"We believe that would allow us to truncate the process even more - and perhaps complete the process by the end of next week."